October 2006 Full Listing

Daylight savings hit me this morning. Woke up, and as I’ve done in previous years, was out of bed before realizing that an extra hour had gotten stuffed into the night. Not that it really mattered. I spent the weekend as I did much of the week, wandering around home (or laying on the couch, watching bad TV) in a cold-fueled haze, with nights literally out cold thanks to the healing powers of Nyquil.

I came down with the cold last Tuesday, and headed home from work about noon. Spent Tuesday and Wednesday at home, and then back to work on Thursday and Friday. And paid for it again on the weekend. I really should have taken more time off from work, but I managed to get a few things done there that needed doing, and most of the chores around home are the sort of thing that can be postponed for a while longer. At least the end is in sight. Colds generally run about a week, so I’m looking forward to Tuesday. Meanwhile, I continue to shuffle around the house, feeling as though my head is stuffed with soggy cotton, and occassionally bursting into a coughing fit as congestion drains into my throat, making me feel as though I was drowning.

Phil Gyford put together a reasonably good A beginner’s guide to freelancing. But as I continue to try to wind down my business, I keep getting reminders of why I’m glad I’m not trying to do it full-time anymore. Last week I got a bill from Wisconsin for back payroll taxes even though I haven’t employed anyone in Wisconsin since 2005. It was easily cleared up by the accountant, but another reminder of how little I like dealing with all the government regulations that come with running a business. [kottke]

Things are maybe calming down a bit around here finally. This looks like the last fully booked weekend for a while, and that’s a good feeling. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been having a lot of fun with the various things occupying my time, but there’s just been a lot of it, it seems. Coupled with busy times at work, it’s all left me very ready for some time off.

Went to see Zappa Plays Zappa last night. Apparently this confuses some of my friends who, knowing of my fondness for simplermusic, and that if I'm listening to something with three guitarists trading licks, their names are more likely to be Betts, Allman or Van Zant, Rossington and Collins than Vai or Zappa, were surprised that I would want to spend $60 to listen to three hours of difficult music. But I was there with three musicians (Auto Body Experience guys), all of whom were big fans, and I knew enough to know that I’d probably enjoy the show (and heck, Lowell George used to be a Mother), but not to have too many expectations up front. And I did enjoy the show. I’m not about to pack all my belongings into a 1967 VW Microbus (what would the right vehicle be to follow Zappa? An Edsel? A Corvair? Or perhaps one of those Avantis?) and follow the band from concert to concert, but if Dweezil and company are still playing Frank’s music in a couple years, and stop by Minneapolis again, I’ll be up for it.

Saw Mark and Sara get married on Saturday. Good ceremony and reception, and I hung with the “Sunday Night Crowd” for both. Took my camera, but discovered they’d hired a photographer, so I let the professional do his work, and only tried one picture which wasn’t to my liking.

Sunday was supposed to be a trip to mom’s, but I had a couple errands I needed to run and they ended up eating the entire day. Oops. I did get to reinforce my dislike for Home Depot again. When you’re shopping at the big orange box, and looking for something that should be in the department you’re standing in, but isn’t, the people working there tend to send you clear to the other end of the store thinking it might be there (and to get you out of their hair). At Mill’s Fleet Farm, the thing you’re looking for is in the right department, and the helpful people will walk you right to the item. Or tell you we don’t have that, but the latter almost never happens. Yeah, Fleet-Farm might be “Target for the Jackpine Savages,” but there are times when that’s exactly what I need. And they have jeans that fit me right there on the shelf, too.

If you’re a Minneapolis resident, you can get Salvaged Paving Bricks/Stones for $2 each. I know it’s not exactly peak landscaping season at this point, but if you’ve got a project planned for the spring, it might be good to pick up your pavers now, since they’re first-come first-served.

Did you know there’s now Google Maps for Treo (and other palm phones, but not my Samsung i500, because the application requires a Palm 5.0 or higher device – drat). I’ve also been looking at the Verizon V Phone as a new phone, mostly because of the included camera, plus better email handling, but I’m just not sure… [jwz]

Not much to link to today, just a note that this is the first night this fall when it dropped below freezing. It was 35 when I stopped for dinner at 7pm last night. It was 31 when I got home at 8pm after eating. 25 now according to the thermometer in my bathroom. Brr.

Work’s kinda kicking my butt this week. Deadline looms, and all the associated fun. At least the deadline is Friday, so I’m pretty much guaranteed not to lose a weekend. Which is good because on Saturday, Mark’s getting married. And on Sunday, I’m going to need to visit mom. So the weekend’s booked, too. And next weekend. And maybe the one after that.

I’ve been thinking again about a vacation, perhaps after things slow down a bit at work, and looking at the visited states map I made almost three years ago. It hasn’t changed any since then, and I’m wondering if maybe I’ll take that into account as I plan a vacation.

Happy Sunday. I didn’t update during the week last week, mostly because I’ve been way behind on the link-finding lately. Wouldn’t have updated today if it weren’t for some news I wanted to share about that photo over on the right.

I’m officially declaring that the weather has been weird this year. July and August were swapped around temperature-wise, and now it seems September and October are, as well. In the first case, July was much hotter and muggier, and August seemed pretty reasonable by comparison. September had me worrying about freezes, and now October is (so far at least), more like September normally is. I suspect that’s going to change later this week, since we might actually get a freeze Thursday morning, but it’s meant that I hurried to get all the outdoors work done for the season last month, and now don’t have an excuse to get outside on these nice days. Instead, there are things I need to do indoors.

Top of the list now is my spare bedroom. Last fall, I was trying to finish up the main bedroom, which I’m now occupying. This fall, I want to get the other one emptied out, take out the carpeting and see what’s under it, and then turn the room into an office/library. The biggest hurry is that I want to be able to open the windows when I’m tearing out the carpeting, but I still have to get all the stuff out of there first. And I haven’t had as much time for that as I’d like lately. The pace is picking up at work, and my weekends are booked full all through this month, and November’s already starting to fill in. My plan has been to try and pack up one box of stuff, or move a half-dozen already filled boxes or one piece of furniture out of there every evening after work. But I haven’t been doing that every evening, and there’s also some amount of sokoban going on, since I don’t have places to put everything without cleaning other rooms first.

I guess there’s not any huge hurry, though. Yes, it’d be nice to get the bookshelves up in there so I can move my books out of my basement, but at this point, they’ll be fine down there through the winter. I just worry about them during the summer months when it can get pretty humid down there.

Google has introduced Google Code Search, which lets you search open-source code on the web. And apparently some code that wasn’t meant to be open-source. Jason has a list of interesting things that have turned up. [kottke]

Indeed it was. Beautiful weather, a gun show where I dropped less than a Jackson (but had temptation to spend a whole lot more), and skipped nearly everything else that was available for my amusement. Instead I worked inside and outside the house, getting the garden cleared out (and harvesting the last dozen peppers), mowing the lawn, grinding up six pounds of breakfast sausage, cleaning the garage, and then re-reading a book I enjoy.

I took exactly one photo over the weekend, and haven’t even pulled it off the camera yet. Gotta do that by Wednesday. The weather was beautiful enough over the weekend, and it is the season of colorful trees, which made me feel somewhat bad for not wandering around and taking pictures, but that was counterbalanced by how good taking naps on both Saturday and Sunday made me feel.

Which leads to my big observation from the weekend. When someone asks what I miss most about working for myself, I now have the answer. And that answer is “naps.”

Joey had a long post about Critical Massholes (or: Why I No Longer Ride with Critical Mass) on Friday. The thing I don’t understand is why the majority of the riders (who seem relatively sane) don’t just change routes when some masshole heads out front and starts trying to “lead.” Then again, I don’t understand why libertarian or anarchist groups in general often end up following some self-appointed leader. [accordionguy]

Claire says the U.S. should be shunned by other nations for passing the Military Commisions Act. I dunno. I guess I don’t see what the big deal is. I mean torturing people to get evidence worked out fine in Salem, MA. And just look at all the witches they found… Hey, if it’s good enough for Stalin, Hitler, and Torquemada, it’s good enough for us, right? [claire]

Is the administration Decimating the Constitution with Military Tribunals? Since the news about the new law came out, I’ve been trying to figure that out, and finally found an article which explains things pretty clearly. It’s all in the name of the “War on Terror,” but what if they were to expand it to any of the other “wars” they’re fighting. I’m not encouraged. [endwar]